This Is What a $5K Bowl of Pho Looks Like

If you ever wanted a bowl of pho to make you feel simultaneously altruistic and overindulgent, you’re in luck. The Vietnamese noodle soup recently got a luxurious makeover at several House of An restaurants in southern California to the tune of $5,000 a bowl. It’s all in the name of charity with proceeds going to The Bash Foundation, which benefits children’s hospitals.

Before you order the dish (and you’d be the first to do so), you might be wondering what a chef can do to a bowl of soup to merit a $5K price tag. In this case, the chef throws in a little poached foie gras, A5 wagyu beef (the highest grade of Kobe), and tops it with Alba truffles. The staple garnishes of Thai basil and bean sprouts (grown at one of the restaurant’s gardens) also make an appearance, and, to top it off, the dish features “molecular gastronomy-devised noodles of rare blue lobster meat.” For the record, we have no idea what that means. But we hope this has nothing to do with our friend Mystique.

The $5K Pho is a permanent menu item at AnQi at Southcoast Plaza, Crustacean in Beverly Hills and Tiato in Santa Monica. –Ashton Strait